


Zweisamkeit

by Tafferling



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: A Valiant Remedy drabbles, F/M, Taff & the Redfield ficlets, absolutely self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11889483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tafferling/pseuds/Tafferling
Summary: He tries to carry the world on his shoulder. But who'll help carry him?A collection of short word soups based on Tumblr prompts, imagines, and the occasional need for something good in my life.





	1. Apple Pie

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [Imagine Chris Redfield being a surprisingly good cook.](https://imagineschrisredfield.tumblr.com/post/164508840642/imagine-chris-being-a-surprisingly-good-cook)
> 
> Characters: Chris Redfield / Sadja Shielding

"I'm starved, Redfield. Feed me." Sadja swings around the corner into the kitchen, her new _phone-thing_ held up to her eyes, and a thumb busy swiping up and up and up and up— until she gets dizzy from all the pictures flying past. She blinks. Shakes her head.

"Are you ever not?" She looks up, and gets scowled at from behind the kitchen counter. A scowl that's got a whole lot more bark than bite, mind you. 

Redfield looks homely today, comfortable. Wears something simple for a simple day. Washed out jeans, a soft, well worn leather belt keeping them up, and an easy fitting moss green shirt that proudly bears his outfit's coat of arms on the curve of his wide shoulder.

"Not when I'm fed, no. What are you doing anyway, and what's that smell. I like that smell." It's sweet and a little spicy. Apple and cinnamon and a hint of vanilla, and it gets her stomach all worked up, because she's not had anything to eat for about two hours and that's just too damn long.

Around the counter she swings, the phone forgotten and dumped on the top, and her feet carry her forward. They’re lured by her nose. And by Redfield standing by the stove top, a big knife in his hands. The knife goes _chop-chop-chop_ as he finishes off a pile of mushrooms that never stood a chance. He's all methodical about it, like he's with everything in his life. Moves from left to right, not once slowing down, and every little shroom gets itself shredded.

_Veggies beware! The BeeEssAyAy don't muck around._

Sadja maneuvers herself next to the stove, turns around, and hops on the top. In return, she gets a bowl shoved into her hand. She holds onto it, peers inside. Empty, save for a sieve at the bottom.

The shrooms tumble into a pan. They sizzle and pop and he flicks the heavy cast iron thing with the same ease that he'd socked a gnarly monstrosity with once. _DAAAANG_ , the pan had said. _CRACK_ , the skull had replied. It'd been droll. Sadja smirks.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothin-"

He grunts, and the pan comes her way. For a moment there she thinks maybe he'll sweep her off the counter, but instead he pours the mushrooms into the bowl. When she reached out to pick one of them out and pop it into her mouth, he glares at her. Her fingers wiggle. The glare sets. And she pulls her hand back out. Empty.

Next he throws green stuff into the pan. While the greens hiss and spit, he grinds spices into them, and Sadja can't help leaning slightly to the right and watch his arms go as he twists the small salt and pepper mills and whatnot. _HmmHmmmHmm_.

He pauses, arms still high, and glances at her. His right brow rocks up slightly.

"Carry on," Sadja says. And he carries on, gives the greenery a stir, and when it's all wilted, he adds that to the mushrooms in her lap.

Then he fetches a white tub from the fridge, carries it over to her, and sets it on her head. Literally. Sadja holds very still, her eyes on him and his on her.

"What?" It's her turn to ask.

"Just trying to figure out how long I can get you to sit still."

She scoffs, tips her head forward, and catches the tub.

"Open it up," he says and drops a big wooden spoon into the bowl. "Stir half of it in."

"Mh."

His finger flicks at her nose. "What was that?"

"Yessir."

So she opens up the tub and does as told, while he busies himself with a large chunk of meat that's still got a big bone in its middle and the skin attached to it. She watches as he goes about getting the bone out, and how he doesn't pause once while his fingers work. And all the while she stirs and stirs and stirs, until she grows bored of that and starts sticking her finger into the tub of white, cheesy goo. _Mascarpone_ , the label reads. Whatever the Hell that is. Tastes nice though, she thinks, scoops out some more, and sucks it off her finger, 'cause damn she's hungry. Her finger still stuck in her mouth, she looks up, and Redfield stands there in front of her, blocking out the rest of the world. Pretty much, anyway. All chest and shoulders and the smell of rainy days mixed into the kitchen's spicy, sweet scents.

He's staring. So she stares back, lips curling slightly around her finger, and her toes tapping at his shin. He crowds her a little. Dips his head to level his nose with hers. She tilts to the left little, and he tilts with her. Comes closer still— closer— until their noses bump. Briefly. A fleeting, tender touch. Her lashes catch on him. His breath puffs against her cheek, whisper against her collarbone— and then Redfield steals the bowl. And the tub.

"Spoilsport," she mutters while he carries both off, delight trailing him that tastes both sweet and just a little dangerous.

Since she's now without a bowl and without much purpose, and Redfield begins stuffing the slab of meat with what she'd stirred together, Sadja hops off the counter and wanders through the kitchen. Trails that smell she'd caught before. All the way to the oven.

Bending forward at the hip, she stares at the dark glass and the thing behind it. Yep. Definitely apple. And for a while she just stand there and looks at the flat thing in there. It's white, turning a little brown, and it really ought to not smell that nice.

Curious, she grabs on to the handle and is just about to pull the oven open, when she gets herself caught with a hand on each wrist, and an insistent drag back. His arms loop around her, and with a twist of his hip he lifts her away from the oven. Her feet come off the floor, and don't land again until she's spun around once, and of half a mind to forget she'd come in hungry.

Except that thing in there, that's pie. And Sadja fucking loves pie, so there's still half a mind of fight in her…


	2. Not a morning Taff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wake up with my batteries in the red already.

Getting out of bed is a bit of an excavation effort, and I'm tempted to curl into the pile of clothes on the floor, because they look comfy and I think I've forgot how to human somewhere between yesterday and today. But I'm a creature of habit, and that habit gets me dressed and down the stairs (somehow), with my feet dragging and eyes not open all the way because someone glued them shut. 

There's hope though. It's riding the air, and I track the spicy smell of coffee into the kitchen, where  _ up-at-0700-AM-on-Saturday-is-normal-Redfield  _ is a blurry smudge in-between tired blinks. I slink past him. Drag the fridge open. Swipe a carton of milk, which goes  _ glug-glug  _ all the way until it lands next to the coffee maker— which is empty.

My hopes lay dashed in the empty glass carafe I'm holding, and I blink at it for a while. 

"Gnnh?"

I put the empty thing back. Turn, sluggish and defeated, until my eyes land on a cup on the counter. It's  _ not  _ empty. It's anything but. 

_ Rustle  _ goes a paper next to the cup. That pretty, full cup. I like that cup. I get that cup, and I carry it off a moment later, hands wrapped around it and almost inhaling it before I can dump some milk into it, 'cause  _ yuck,  _ black coffee.

One sip in, and there's a huff behind me, along with a heavy weight landing on my shoulder and giving a squeeze. 

"Mine," I mumble, because words are hard, and that one will have to do. But just in case I pour a little more milk into it. Stake my claim. Spoil it in case there's any attempt at a hostile takeover. 

Air puffs against my ear and cheek. Warmth settled on my head. Has a go at ruffling my hair.  _ Ruffle-ruffle-pat—  _ and that's nice, and almost worth feeling like a lump of drained Taff with -1 coffee and her batteries in the red. 

 


	3. No big deal. No big fuss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this prompt: [“You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.” ](https://tafferfield.tumblr.com/post/166676329131/you-need-to-wake-up-because-i-cant-do-this)

**L** ong as he could remember, Chris had always woken quickly. No big deal and no big fuss—  Asleep then, awake now, etc. Barr the occasional hangover (which he didn’t much care to think back to) he’d never bothered with the groggy in-between of sleep and being ready for, well, anything.  And the concept of a snooze button hadn’t ever caught on with him either.  

So when a hand slipped between his arm and his chest to give a tentative pull, that was all it took to shake him from a perfectly comfortable sleep.  He blinked his eyes open. Took in the almost absolute dark of the room, with the only source of light a muted green glow from the alarm clock on his bedside table. It read 02:16, which was somewhere between too early and way too early for any sort of waking.   _What?_  

He turned around, following the arm that’d roused him.

She’d been crying.  That wasn’t hard to tell, even with the lights off, what with the puffy eyes and quivering chin.   _Is still,_  Chris corrected his observation quickly, and did the only thing that came to mind on such short notice.  He turned around under the blanket, lifted it where it got stuck under him and between his legs, and draped an arm over the quietly sobbing mess.  

He didn’t ask  _You okay?_ That’d had been the worst kind of platitude, and he’d never quite understood why people even bothered with asking a question when the answer was right in front of them.  

_What’s wrong?_  would have been better, but he didn’t ask that either.

_“It just sort of happens,”_  she’d told him after the first time.  Which was mostly bullshit and barely half a serving of truth, but sometimes even scars still itched and burnt, both the ones in plain sight, and the ones well hidden on the inside. After that half truth, she’d apologised.  Over and over and over again, until he’d shut her up with a kiss that’d been equal parts out of protest and necessity.  Because even if she’d been built to be broken, didn’t mean he couldn’t at least try to mend the cracks that kept tearing at her.  No matter how often they came back.

So he didn’t ask tonight either.  Instead, he tucked her against his chest and wrapped her up until he could feel every soundless cry in how her shoulders twitched and the tendons along her neck strained.  Her fingers curled against his front, nails nicking slightly as she tried to cling on.  That tickled.  He puffed air down at her and hummed at her ear.  She’d always been a real ugly crier.  Ugly and forceful and messy.  And very very private.  For the longest time he’d had no idea since she’d never let him see, but now that he did?

He fastened his arms a little tighter around her.  Now he’d never let her endure it alone.  Chris dropped his chin on the back of her head.  Listened to how she tried so hard not to sob out loud.  And he waited.

Yeah— he’d always been quick to wake— ready for anything and then some.  Even if all he’d have to do was wait out whatever demons had come to harass her.  Especially that, really.  And once the demons scampered, he’d fall right back to sleep.  

No big deal.  No big fuss.  


End file.
